I am a depressed writer on the road to recovery.

“there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.”

~ Charles Bukowski

Writers across generations have written of this bluebird, of this ever aching human heart longing for inner peace and connection. Our pens have bled on paper our loneliness, our isolation, our hopelessness, the soul shattering sadness of our existential worlds. It has hurt so much, the only way to retain some sort of sanity, has been to write it down; a mechanism to somehow process these painful feelings.

I have been one such writer for many years. I have written of my many heartbreaks, about the constant thoughts of feeling severely alienated, of feeling severely disconnected with the outer world, of an indescribable loneliness. I have written of struggles about migration in my family, the dark affairs of our world today — degrading politics, wars, many discriminations and inequality , human atrocities against other humans and the planet, about endless suffering of all beings and our environment.

I strongly believe these poems and stories about vulnerability of human heart as well as calling out and raising voice against unjust matters of the world need to be written. This art has started much needed greatest revolutions of human history. It has also given pleasures like no other to a mindful reader. Its importance doesn’t require any explanation.

However I share here my personal experiences. As I continued to write about difficult situations of human existence, over the years I started to forget the goodness that exists around us. My focus remained on the darkness in things and slowly I had complete memory loss of the love and the light that surrounds us. Finding positivity when things seem extremely negative, is the most difficult thing to do. And I continued down the spiral of forgetting that any positive and hopeful things exist. This mentality intensified my anxieties and depression. I had become completely hopeless, lonely, isolated and discouraged in life.

This battle is still ongoing but I knew I had to make some radical changes on how my creative expressions were impacting my mental health. I made one change which has made life relatively pleasant.

I started a journal where I vowed to write only about the beautiful and inspiring things around me. This journal talks about my struggles but doesn’t attach to the negativity of the struggles. It chooses to focus on optimism and changes I can make on a personal level to make world a better place. It has calmed me down substantially to recognize this power in me and others around me. Just to put it down on paper that we are love, truth , goodness and light inherently, except that we forget this many times, has put my confidence back on myself and my relationship with the universe, giving me security I so long lacked that contributed to my mental health issues.

I write in this journal about beauty in the universe and what can we learn from it. I write about basic but most valuable lessons about being kind and compassionate, expressing gratitude, respecting and loving self and all beings. This journaling habit has also started changing my lifestyle. I have started deepening my practice on meditation, mindfulness and yoga along with taking time to care about self with simple rituals like relaxing baths, healthy cooking, daily walks in nature.

Anyone suffering from depression and anxieties knows this is not an easy process but to strongly commit to recognizing  positivity about life and remembering the principles of goodness in humanity , connecting with nature , loving self and caring for self  and others,  are some tools that can be used to make challenges with mental health easier.

As writers, we have responsibility to write about world’s truth but that can be done without drowning in the ill sea. We can write of these difficult issues and still manage to keep flowers in our hair, our gaze on the vast skies full of stars, ocean’s sand under our feet and a heart that knows that we are love and light.

~

Vaishali Paliwal is an artist working on finding an expression to ‘the ultimate experiment’. Sometimes she does this with words. She aspires to build, break and rebuild all that art is to her. Currently she resides in Los Angeles where she works on her spiritual practice and writes poetry and short stories from her other worlds. Her poetry chapbook ‘Lion’s Tooth On Migrating Chests’ was recently published by The Soap Box Press. Some of her other published writing is in Gone Lawn, Genre Urban Arts, Peeking Cat, Eunoia review, Somnia Blue and Thirty West Publishing house. You can reach her at [email protected] or Instagram @alaya_______.

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